Maybe on Brighter Days
by p for pseudonymous
Summary: Sandra Gallagher survives on parked car fucks and LSD, her life spun like black poetry. [OC character, Gallagher sister]


Disclaimer: It should be noted that this document is a work of fanfiction and therefore any recognizable characters, events, ect. do not belong to me.

Chapter One

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Maybe on Brighter Days

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She survives on parked car fucks and LSD; but she doesn't have either of those things in her mouth at the moment. Instead, her tongue rolls around the idea of vodka and salvation, weighing the two against one another in each cheek.

Her life in spun like black poetry (party girls don't get hurt), neck wrapped in daisy chains. She's a still-life animation, on her knees all day and still moving fast. Her ass sure does look great in jeans though, all bent over to get around like that.

When the alarm clock goes off this morning she mutters: "time is a damned lie." It must be some idea she got from Lip and the physics textbooks he reads allowed in the evenings to shush her to sleep.

She sits in lace that doesn't cover the freckles on her shoulders, the sort of tank tops and underwear that makes the boys hard. She doesn't mean it, or she doesn't know she means it. When she walks down stairs its with over grown bangs on her forehead, squinted brown eyes like peace pennies that she drops in the squirrel fund every summer, and that sort of tilted smile all Gallaghers have.

"Hey, Baby, want some juice?" When they say her name it's pronounced like 'bay-bay,' a sort of playful verbal nudge. The girl they nickname Baby takes the cracked glass in her hand and downs the pulp-less orange drink in one gulp. It's the only thing she'll swallow all at once.

The Gallagher household is full of things they did that don't seem to matter anymore: where the bubble bath is drawn with dish soap and the dish soap is half water; where counting from eldest to youngest Fiona plays mother, Lip plays it cool, Ian plays pretend, Sandra plays Baby, Debbie plays grown-up, Carl plays felon, and Liam just plays with his toys. Oh how they all wish they could still play with their toys even if they only ever were Frank's empty bottles. In this neighborhood you get used to the feel of glass in your palms; you pick it out with your teeth and grind it down to see if it'll make you feel a little less empty. Usually it doesn't.

Lip sits in his chair backwards; he always seems to do the right things the wrong way. "I'm going to the library today, Baby, wanna come?" Whenever Lip goes to the library he asks baby Sandra along and she always says yes. He takes her by the church where she likes to loiter and pretend she's something holy, or maybe just that the sun can still peer through the filthy stain glass and into the empty chapel—even if it is the long way around. Lip just uses it as a good smoke break.

The sky flitters on and Sandra sits on the splintered wood of the church steps. Too many feet stomped—not tiptoed—across these mismatched floors. Spring is just opening up into early summer and the flowers they stepped on last season are again beginning to bloom. "Debbie opens the daycare in a week or so doesn't she?" Sandra says in a way to make idle conversation.

Lip nods while lighting up, catching the flame and bobbing the orange tip of his cancer stick up and down again. "Next Monday," he blows his smoke away from Sandra, "should help bring in some good cash. You got a job lined up this year?"

Sandra dips her toe in the mud and remembers: Kelley has red hair, probably because she's always on fire, and Sandra follows it through the crowd of the club. Everything is blue here, everything but her best friend's hair; the contrast reminds her of staring up at her fan when she's on an acid trip: the colors split, the colors our eyes don't normally see. They make it to the back room and the glitter there reflects the only two colors to her eyes over and over again. It's a galaxy in there. The galaxy breathes in a voice that sounds in multiples, dozens of pitches. She's sucked through a vacuum, she thinks, something dark and sharp; something that brushes off all the blurred lines and takes her to present. "What the fuck is wrong with her?" It's a man's voice. A man she doesn't know.

Kelley's hands are on her and Sandra melts into them (I'm drowning, drowning, drowning in this galaxy). "Must be the ecstasy… she's candy flippin'. Must not be used to the pair of em'," Kelley remarks, her voice is easy. Everything about Kelley is easy.

At some point after that though Kelley must have left because Sandra can't see her anymore and it's the man's hands on her instead of her red headed friend's. Sandra hopes Kelley is wearing a space suit because Sandra isn't wearing anything at all right now and she's suffocating. It's a thick hot poison filling her lungs instead, rocking her back with doped up heaviness. And that strange man is moaning, so sick and sweaty. She tries to call for help but his hand is over her mouth. He must be saving me, she thinks, must be making sure I don't breathe anymore of that toxic air. She can still feel it though, pricking at her skin and burning below the waistline. Where are their space suits?

Kelley is back again and she's screaming, "you think we're gonna dance for you?" The red head is on fire again. But Sandra needs the job and she reminds her of that, "As long as he fixes the air," she says (as long as he fixes the air).

Sandra turns out of her memory to Lip, "Yeah, I got a job lined up."


End file.
